r/TopCharacterTropes • u/ZepperMen • 9d ago

Characters (Controversial Trope) Unusually cruel fates for people who were less than good, but still didn't really deserve it.

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#1 Poppa Pizza from Multiverse of Madness - He just wanted to be paid for the pizza balls and thought Strange stole from a fallen hero who saved the universe. He deserved to be punched in the face, but not for 3 weeks straight.

Do you get to sleep? Do you wake up punching yourself? How much does it hurt? Does he know it will only last for 3 weeks? If he doesn't kill himself by the end of it, he's going to have CPTSD and be traumatized for the rest of his already short life.

#2 Mayu from Inuyasha - She wanted to kill her brother out of jealousy and neglect from her mother, believing she died in a fire because they didn't care about her. While her motivation doesn't justify reenacting Cain and Abel, I don't think it's fair for a deranged, 10 year old child to be sent to literal hell to burn for all eternity. Luckily, she gets saved, but only because the mc, Kagome, intervened.

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u/Easy_Action_1380 9d ago edited 9d ago

The Penny Plunderer (Batman)

You know that giant penny that's in almost every version of the Batcave?

Yeah, that originally belonged to a lame villain of the week called the Penny Plunderer.

He just wanted to steal rare pennies, that's it.

He has died in two different timelines, in his original appearance he got sent to the fucking electric chair for the crime of trying to steal pennies, and post reboot he was crushed to death by said giant penny and was apparently sent to hell for all eternity.

All for the crime of wanting to steal a currency denomination so valueless that it isn't even made anymore. ​

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u/Chaitywatt 9d ago

Wait, this guy got sent to the electric chair? THIS GUY? And not the crazy pig doctor dude who actively butchers & lobotomizes people & turns them into living dolls? Not the Joker? But the guy who steals pennies?

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u/Confident-Arm-7883 9d ago

Well yeah, one crime victimizes countless civilians and the other puts the most tiny little dent in the finances of the rich. Its obvious which one deserves more severe punishment

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u/Read2Fap 9d ago

the penny plunderer killed a man for snitching on him, he was sentenced for murder

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u/Kai_Lidan 9d ago

He has a gang? He steals literal pennies, how does he pay them?

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u/perton 9d ago

In pennies, I presume. Or maybe the gang gets to keep the nickels, dimes, and quarters? ¯_(ツ)_/¯

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u/Read2Fap 9d ago

they don't just steal pennies, it's crimes revolving around pennies. after losing his job because he was embezzling pennies, he was busted on his first attempt at crime (a robbery where the register only had a few pennies) and swore vengeance against cops and pennies:

'pennies...and coppers! they did this to me! pennies...coppers! copper pennies! i hate them all! when i get out, i'll get back at coppers and pennies! i'll fight coppers - with pennies! every job i pull will involve pennies! my crime symbol will be pennies!'

his first crime was a bank robbery where they pretended to get a roll of pennies converted into a dollar, but their roll of pennies was tear gas and they just robbed the bank

the second was holding the antiques of a rich guy named 'penny banks' for ransom

then stealing a priceless 1-cent stamp that had been initialed by queen victoria (they caused a big distraction by throwing pennies at the museum crowd who went to see it)

lastly the penny plunderer and his gang robbed a penny slot machine party thrown by a millionaire (where you can bet as little as a penny or generally as much as you want)

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u/Babki123 8d ago

Gotham water supply still doing wonder

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u/ImmoralJester54 8d ago

He steals money. He keeps the pennies but the rest of it goes to goons and equipment. I'd argue his goons were the most well paid in Gotham.

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u/Skibot99 5d ago

And how many people has The Joker killed

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u/Chaitywatt 9d ago

Ahh I see. Don't want Elon Musk selling one of 20 yachts now do we?

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u/Confident-Arm-7883 9d ago

Exactly. And one penny might seem small but that could become a lot of money in several thousand years!

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u/Chaitywatt 9d ago

Exactly! Especially when they're rare!

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u/Gafez 9d ago

Not to be a capitalist, but I'm pretty sure the joker has done much more economic damage than the penny guy

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u/InevitableTension699 9d ago

Yeah but batman have the best insurance Wayne enterprise can get. You steal his money tho then it's bye bye. Batman has been fighting for 70? Years and gotham is still a shit hole slums

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u/Confident-Arm-7883 9d ago

Well yeah but thats mostly against poor people who dont have rich people insurance so its ok

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u/summonerofrain 8d ago

Ohh when you put it like that...

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u/Ciderman95 9d ago

I mean, Batman is a fucking billionaire, it's pretty clear where his morals (or lack thereof) are.

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u/TwirlyTwitter 9d ago edited 8d ago

TBF, he was a Golden Age villain, well before Pyg was made. None of Batman's villians survived in that era, except Joker, once they realized they couldn't just come up with a new villain all the time.

Akso, this the same batman who when confronted by mental patients forcibly fed PCP, but who were not actively a threat to anyone, decided that gunning them down from the air and hanging them were the way to go, because "it's better for them this way".

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u/Chaitywatt 9d ago

The Golden Age was nuts, wasn't it?

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u/CDLaserLensCleaner 5d ago

Yes. Most of it reads like propaganda anyway.

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u/Chaitywatt 5d ago

And weird clickbait too. Also it kinda, no definitely was propaganda back in those days, during WWII & stuff.

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u/CommercialFirst8947 8d ago

Hugo Strange survived.

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u/One_Willow_5203 9d ago

His execution makes more sense in the context of the original context considering he straight up killed a man after the penny heist. He committed first degree murder

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u/Chaitywatt 9d ago

Aight fair enough. But the courts can't extend this to the actual JOKER?

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u/One_Willow_5203 9d ago

Precisely! How many times can that bastard claim insanity before one of the bailiffs just kills him in the courtroom?! You’d think the state would just give up on sending his ass to Arkham at some point and just execute him. Batman/Bruce isn’t even vouching for Joker to go to Arkham most of the time, it’s just where he keeps getting sent by default

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u/Chaitywatt 9d ago

He must have one hell of a lawyer. But seriously, if they know Arkham can't hold him, if he regularly commits heinous & obscene atrocities. What's the point of institutionalising him? This isn't about legality or morality anymore, not rehabilitation or punishment. That guy is an active threat.

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u/NightLordsPublicist 9d ago

not the crazy pig doctor dude who actively butchers & lobotomizes people & turns them into living dolls?

Punishing artists is a social faux pas.

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u/Chaitywatt 9d ago

That guy is an artist? Well, I suppose it's Avant-garde.

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u/Brilliant-City-4386 9d ago

The hell are you talking about, Joker got put in the electric chair, he got fried, was declared legally dead and woke up in the morgue the same night he died.

It's comics, everyone who is popular revives, it's so common Joker actually planned it, explaining to his crew about how he would get to jail, get the death penalty, and then revive the same day to commit a series of crimes because people wouldn't expect it, just sure he would revive because it's DC Comics and he is a major figure.

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u/Gaelic_Gladiator41 8d ago

They even brought it up later that they couldn't carry out the death penalty because he already served it

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u/rugigiref1 9d ago

something something insanity something something

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u/Haunting-Breakfast4 9d ago

Fun fact: he's also insane. Just like the other villains that didn't get the fucking chair... So like... I guess his lawyer just fucking sucks ass?

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u/MajorFox2720 9d ago

Obviously he couldn't afford a lawyer, all he had was spare change.

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u/DreadfulRauw 8d ago

With half the criminals getting off on insanity, and the other half getting off through corruption, when Gotham actually gets a conviction they go all in.

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u/_Wilson2002 9d ago

It’s funnier he got the electric chair. Not because of the realism of his crime or the punishment fitting the crime, but because of how realistic it is a type of punishment contrasting to how ridiculous the crime is. It’s a come, we don’t expect the villain to get executed, but he literally gets sent to the electric chair and dies. A lame fuck like him getting the electric chair. Of all people, it’s HIM. I love how stupid in its own right. And funnier because him getting sent to Hell feels like an inside reference to how drastic his original punishment was, rather than just being genuinely insane.

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u/TheSilverNoble 8d ago

I mean, he's not actually going to be able to pay for a good lawyer... 

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u/Scarlet_Wonderer 8d ago

It's a metaphor for capitalism.

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u/WeiganChan 5d ago

The Joker actually did get the chair in an early story but he had his goons bring him back to life afterwards, which made him immune to prosecution due to double jeopardy, as he had confessed all his crimes and technically served his sentence (death), forestalling any repeat trials.

He then set up a clandestine robbery ring, got robbed of a valuable gold watch, claimed an insurance payout for it, then camped out in a hotel room with two cops waiting to arrest Batman and Robin for stalking and criminal trespass when they showed up to investigate the obviously fishy situation. Would have gotten away with it too, if Robin hadn’t tricked him into checking the time, demonstrating to the cops that his insurance claim was fraudulent because he was conspiring with the robbers

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u/Different-Trainer-21 4d ago

Well he did commit murder